Monday, October 6, 2008

First day in the new job

Today was my first day at the new job.

Man my feet hurt.

I walked 8 blocks from the bus stop to the office, I walked what seemed like miles around the Pentagon doing check-in stuff, I walked from the Pentagon back over to Crystal City, and I walked from the office back down the 8 blocks to the bus stop again.

...Wearing new leather uniform shoes.

...I have blisters the size of Rhode Island.

Other than that though, the first day wasn't too bad.

I hitched a ride to the Dulles North park-n-ride with my next door neighbor and took the Loudoun County commuter bus in to Crystal City. I left the house at 0553 and arrived at the office at 0708, so 1 hour and 15 minutes total door-to-door. It broke down about like this:

**Update 10/11/08: I figured out there is another bus stop that's a lot closer to my office, like 3 blocks away. It only takes me 8 minutes to walk slowly on my blisters, or 5 minutes if I walk at a brisk pace.

The Loudoun County commuter bus was pretty nice. It's not like it was an hour wasted driving my own car in traffic. I got to read and write emails on my Blackberry during the bus ride in. (Aside: I forgot how dark it is that time in the morning). This afternoon on the way home I read a book. I look forward to making a dent in my "books I wanna read" list.

When I got to work this morning, I admired a beautiful sunrise over Washington, D.C. from the windows of my new office. Then I dove into the bureaucracy and started plugging away at my three different check-in lists and sat through boring security indoctrination videos.

So who the hell is BOB anyway?

I've had the same gosh darn cell phone number for four years now, and all of a sudden I've started getting phone calls out the wazoo for somebody named "Bob." I've started asking the callers who Bob is and how they got my phone number, but they evade the question or hang up. Today I came out of my office to find I had two missed calls from the same phone number, and no sooner did I turn on my cell phone than the phone rang - a NEW call from the SAME number I had already missed twice, and of course it was someone looking for "Bob."

I suppose I need to start screening my cell phone calls. I'll put a message on my voice mail explaining this is NOT Bob's phone and not to call back.

Somebody help me out. What's the difference between a catapult and a torsion catapult?

Did you know there is an annual pumpkin launching contest in Delaware? It's called the World Championship Punkin Chunkin, and it's being held Oct 31st through Nov 2nd this year. The competition is divided into several classes - pneumatic ("air"), centrifugal, trebuchet, catapult, human-powered and torsion catapult to name a few.

Looking at the pictures of last year's event, these contraptions are HUGE. Then again, I suppose they would need to be in order to fling a 10 pound pumpkin as far as possible.

It sounds like a pretty fun event that the boys might enjoy watching if it wasn't way over in Delaware.

BLUNOZ

From September 2007 to September 2008, this blog started out as a journal of my family's adventures around Hawaii. Then from 2008 to 2011, we lived in the Northern Virginia (NoVA) suburbs of Washington, DC. From the spring of 2011 to 2013, we called the Pacific Northwest "home." In June 2013, we moved back to the DC suburbs again. I like finding cool things for us to do that get us out of the house, so I will continue to blog about our adventures around the DC area, as well as periodic musings about whatever else strikes me as funny or odd. Note: These are my frank and honest opinions. Nobody is paying me to write anything in my blog.

About Me

My name is Kevin. I'm 40-something. I have a lovely wife (LW) and two great little boys, Eldest Son = ES and Younger Brother = YB (in older posts, I previously referred to him as Youngest Son or YS). I'm a submarine officer, and I've been in the Navy for 21+ years.
I started this blog to document our family adventures around Hawaii for family and friends. After that we moved to DC and then to Bremerton, WA. We have since moved back to the DC suburbs and I continue blogging about my random observations of life.

Contact Me

If you would like to contact me, you may email me atblunozblog at hotmail dot com.

Geocaching!

My wife refers to me as a "crack addict" when it comes to geocaching. Geocaching is like a scavenger hunt with a GPS receiver. People hide stuff in the woods and post the GPS coordinates on the geocaching website, and techno-gadget geeks like me go hiking in the woods looking for them. My wife calls it "Geek-meets-Nature."

What I'm Reading...

It's the only magazine I have consistently kept a subscription to and read every month. Although I don't agree with the magazine's recurring theme of agnosticism / anti-religion, I skip those articles and soak up all the cool electronic gadgets and technology articles.

Outside Magazine is another new favorite of mine. One thing I really like about Outside Magazine is the photography. The pictures are absolutely amazing, but there's more to it than just the picture. Outside Magazine includes a short description of who the photographer was and how he/she got into position to capture the shot at just the right moment.

What I'm listening to...

Where'd I get the name "blunoz" from?

On my first deployment as a junior officer on USS PROVIDENCE (SSN 719), I had the awesome experience of going north of the Arctic Circle. The Navy has many customs and traditions, and when you cross a significant invisible line in the ocean like the Arctic Circle or the Equator, you have to go through an initiation ceremony. When I returned from that first deployment, I got a new license plate on my car, but had to fit it into 6-letters, so I condensed blue nose into "blunoz."